Evil Knows No Borders

The Scandinavian version of “The Bridge” (“Bron/Broen”) begins with a body laid across the halfway point on a bridge between Denmark and Sweden.

The American adaptation of “The Bridge” puts the corpse on the border between Mexico and the United States.

This FX series, which starts on Wednesday, should be as good or better than the original.

Danish television, in particular, is known for sinister, psychologically dense crime series, but it’s hard to imagine that there is much to the cultural collision between Copenhagen and Malmo, except for maybe the narcissism of small differences. (Swedish detectives snicker at the accent of an inspector from Copenhagen.)

Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, on the other hand, are rich in cultural divides and social discord. Ciudad Juárez, a haven for drug cartels, has a real, recent and horrible history of murder and kidnapping: since 1993 hundreds of women have been killed there, and many more are missing.

El Paso is, if nothing else, a crucible for the current debate over immigration reform.

To put it another way: On “The Bridge” a conservative judge receives threats after ruling against Mexican day workers arrested for loitering on a corner in El Paso.

When a Swedish politician takes an unpopular stand, it’s a proposal to impose library fees.

“The Bridge,” which has a bigger budget, a cast that includes Diane Kruger (“Inglourious Basterds”) and Demian Bichir (“Weeds”), and a far more combustible backdrop, somehow falls short. It is louder, bolder and more lurid than the original, and also more boring.

“The Bridge” is disturbing; it’s just not that interesting.

That’s not always the case with adaptations, be they comedies like HBO’s “Veep,” which was refashioned from a British show, “The Thick of It,” or dramas like Showtime’s “Homeland,” which draws from an Israeli series, “Hatufim.”

There is no proven recipe for success. Some copies stick close to the original, and others riff more freely, but the best find a way to make their versions equally interesting in a different way. FX has a flair for unusual, homegrown shows, including “The Americans” and “American Horror Story.”

An excess of ambition may be part of the problem with “The Bridge.” The cinematography and music are moody, evocative and overly intrusive — the filmmaking is too self-conscious ever to relax into true creativity. The intersecting story lines are all perhaps too similarly bleak in tone and even hue. Comic relief isn’t necessary to a good crime series, but contrast helps a lot.

And then there is the heroine, Detective Sonya Cross. Ms. Kruger, who plays her, is possibly even more Nordic and classically beautiful than her Swedish counterpart, Sofia Helin. Sonya is unusual, with more than a hint of Asperger’s syndrome. And unfortunately for Ms. Kruger, the bar for psychologically challenged female crime fighters is already high: Claire Danes as a bipolar C.I.A. analyst in “Homeland,” Emily Deschanel as an unfeeling forensic anthropologist in “Bones,” or even the ghost-whispering psychic Patricia Arquette played on the canceled series “Medium.”

Ms. Kruger is appropriately inappropriate and cold in the role, but she doesn’t fully pull off the impersonation — Sonya’s insensibility seems to switch on and off without any guiding reason. That could be why the American version telegraphs the detective’s condition in a way that the Scandinavian original did not. Sonya’s boss reminds her to make eye contact with victims’ relatives and to visit the ladies’ room when it’s time to change her shirt. The original let viewers in on in the heroine’s disorder more obliquely.

Mr. Bichir has an easier time playing the rumpled, burned-out Mexican detective Marco Ruiz, an honest cop who has to pick his way through brambles of corruption, bribery and violence in his own police department to investigate a homicide. He and Sonya are paired because the murder falls under joint jurisdiction and they are, of course, mismatched but oddly suited.

The premise of “The Bridge” seemed perfectly suited to the Texas-Mexico border and yet, as a crime drama, it turns out to be less than the sum of its divides.

Correction:July 11, 2013

Because of editing errors, a television review on Wednesday about “The Bridge,” on FX, and a picture caption with it incorrectly rendered the given name of a cast member. He is Demian Bichir, not Demián.